Elon Musk Sued for $1M for Tweets That Linked College Student to Neo-Nazi Group
Elon Musk is not above lobbing insults at random strangers on the internet, but his summertime effort at "citizen journalism" has now resulted in him being sued for incorrectly suggesting that a 22-year-old college student was associated with a neo-Nazi extremist group.
As HuffPost reports, Musk is being sued for defamation by Benjamin Brody, who was falsely identified by internet sleuths as participating in a street brawl between two extremist groups—the Proud Boys and the Rose City Nationalists—on a the sidelines of a Portland Pride event.
During the fight, two masked individuals had their masks ripped off and photos of their faces soon hit social media, including Twitter (now X). Brody was incorrectly identified as one of the people. Musk joined in the discussion, suggesting that the entire fight was a fabricated "false flag" orchestrated by liberal Antifa members and the feds.
"Looks like one is a college student (who wants to join the govt) and another is maybe an Antifa member, but nonetheless a probable false flag situation," Musk wrote in a tweet that it still live.
Ironically, Musk tagged @CommunityNotes, a community-led feature that calls on X users to add context or corrections to popular tweets.
Brody, meanwhile, was in California at the time of the Portland clash. And while some Twitter users tried to tell Musk that Brody was not involved, Musk still interacted with and amplified accounts that said he was, prompting the suit, which is seeking $1 million in damages.
"In short, Ben and his family were doxed and suffered an enormous wave of harassment and threats from belligerent strangers," according to Brody's lawyer, Mark Bankston.
"In the weeks following Musk’s statements, it was apparent to Ben that his
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